John Taylor Gatto

inauthentic state of their human experience. Through the glorification of nature, the exemplification of the power of imagination and freedom of emotional expression, composers profoundly engage with elements of the authentic human experience. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s conversation poem, ‘This Lime Tree Bower My Prison’ (1797), his ballad, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798), Mary Shelley’s frame, Frankenstein (1818), Caspar David Friedrich’s oil painting ‘Chalk Cliffs on Rugen’ (1818), and…

Surrounded by the freezing tundra of the treacherous Antarctic, many courageous and adventuresome explorers have risked their lives for answers about the boundless mysteries hidden within the arctic sea. The rigid and harsh climate of this uncharted land makes survival an almost impossible task. However, the few exceptions, such as the renowned Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a courageous explorer aboard the old and unsuited ship, the Karluk, lead to fame and success. Stefanssons quest to find a lost…

Repentance and the Albatross Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 classic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a tale of an ancient mariner sharing his story with a young guest at a wedding. Coleridge uses the mariner’s fable to teach his readers valuable lessons on topics ranging from having respect for God’s creatures to acknowledging the consequences of an action before acting. In The Rime of an Ancient Mariner, Coleridge specifically uses the symbolism of the albatross to teach his readers…

The Supernatural and the Bible: Two Forces That Guide the Mariner and His Crew Taking something old and turning it into something new is an act most everyone has done at some point in time. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a perfect description of the re-salvage of Greek and Roman stories that the author uses in his writings. In this short story, author Coleridge, beautifully portrays an English ballad in the Romantic Period and offers a delightful, yet eerie, twist…

Specific Depiction As stated previously, specific depiction of death and dying encapsulates actions and feelings by specific characters in the movie. Dying is depicted as a hurtful process that nobody wants to experience. From the instant the ship hits the iceberg while Jack and Rose are on the top deck, the audience gets the impression that Jack knows, and fears that “this could be really bad.” It offers a glimpse into the apprehension by Jack regarding the prospect that the ship could sink as…

The Biblical Symphony of Rime of the Ancient Mariner In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner the key to understanding the moral purpose of the story comes from the numerous biblical allusions in the poem. Coleridge designs his poem to be a moral parable to the life of a Christian in his time period, and his views on the failings and trappings of religion. His poem parallels the life of the mariner and the life of the wedding guest to Christians at different points in their…

the story progresses as Cassie soon discovers the cold truth of racism and racial segregation in Southern America during that time. After reading the book, I have found three things that are worth mentioning. Firstly, I found it interesting how Taylor used Cassie as the narrator in the novel. As she was only just a child, we as readers were given a different insight as to how the community of Mississippi worked. Using…

During Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry Stacey “comes of age” and learns from many trials that make him wiser and grow more as a person. Even though he made many mistakes, it helped him grow by having to solve and deal with the consequences. During the whole novel he learned many lessons such as cutting ties, being the bigger person, and standing up for what is right. Through this process of gaining “thicker skin” he became harsher of a person who in the end, always looks out for his family. Stacy…

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner during the Romantic Period where people were driven away from reason and driven toward the use of imagination. In accordance with the period, Coleridge sought to establish poetic faith in his writing, a willing suspension of disbelief (Tomko 244). Through the use of literary devices, Coleridge succeeds in using imagination and making his encounter with supernatural forces, namely the appearance of the Night-mare Life-in-Death and the…

Romanticism, a literary and cultural movement from the early 19th century, rebelled against its predecessor, the Enlightenment, which stressed logic over emotion. By valuing nature, the unknown, and the supernatural, Romanticism was based in emotion over logic. This was especially seen in literature, when authors would use nature to reflect mood, as is evident in Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein. Shelley cleverly uses nature to not only reflect the mood of her characters, but to also represent the…